Broken Angels
by AndreeaRaducan
Summary: The team are too late to save Will and Henry from a sadistic killer. When JJ's life is broken, Emily becomes her pillar of support.


_A/N: So I wrote this ages ago, and I'm sure I uploaded it. But anyway, here's a pretty sad idea I had a long time ago._

_Disclaimer: I don't own CM._

* * *

Emily Prentiss stared at the iPhone in her hand, hoping it would ring by sheer power of mind. She was worried, and angry. Angry at Jennifer Jareau for shutting herself off, but worried about her physical and mental being at the same time. She hadn't heard from the blonde profiler for over a week now. Ever since everything in JJ's life had been ripped away from her in a heartbeat, the blonde had slowly lost contact with the team, Emily being the one she'd stayed in touch with for the longest.

Emily should've known it was coming. All she wanted was a call, a text, a Facebook notification, a fucking '_Words with Friends'_ notification for crying out loud, something that would tell her that JJ was still walking the face of the earth.

Heaving a sigh, she dropped the rectangular gadget onto the surface of her desk, and rested her head on her hands. It had only been four months.

_JJ sat in the middle of the back seat in the SUV, Emily on her left and Derek on her right. Tears were streaming down her face._

"_Everything's going to be ok, we're on our way, I promise," she sobbed into the phone that was pressed tightly to her ear._

"_You can't guarantee that, Agent Jareau. You're still five minutes away. In five minutes, I can do a lot," Steven Gregory hissed in reply._

"_JJ! JJ, I love you so much!" Will's voice called desperately in the background. JJ pressed her lips together tightly, swallowed hard to try and fight back the tears cascading down her cheeks._

"_Mama...I does love you lots," Henry's sweet angel voice added. JJ could tell he was crying. She only hoped Will was holding him, protecting him. She hoped they could be together when it happened._

"_Mama, we get pancakes for dinner?" Henry asked. Steven was obviously holding out the phone to them, as his voice was closer now._

"_We can have whatever you would like," JJ said tearfully as Emily tightened her embrace around the blonde's shoulders._

"_Pancakes sound great," Will chipped in. His voice was light, cheerful, but it was forced. So as not to scare little Henry. As if Steven hadn't done that already._

"_I love you so much. Both of you. I love you so...I can't even begin to put it into words. I love you forever and always," JJ promised, feeling sick as she realised they were close. Steven was going to kill them._

"_Say your goodbyes," Steven said cruelly. JJ could distinctly hear Henry crying, and Will pleading. Steven had raised his gun._

_A gunshot echoed through the speaker, audible to everyone. JJ was almost hysterical. She could still hear Henry, but there was no sound of Will. No Southern accent. No trace of that thick drawl that JJ had fallen in love with._

_A second gunshot._

_And then nothing but silence._

_And then the dial tone._

Pulling herself out of her chair, Emily made her way to the restroom. Locking the main door behind her, she leant heavily against the counter, looking into the mirror. Her eyes were bright, welling with tears as the memories of that tragic day washed over her. She couldn't shake the image from her mind. It was the most heartbreaking thing she'd ever seen.

_As soon as the SUV pulled to a stop at JJ's house, JJ had flung the door open, climbed over Emily, and leapt out of the car, sprinting for the front door._

"_JJ, wait, he might still be in-!"_

_Her team member's yells echoed through her head as she ripped her gun from the holster, threw the front door open, and entered the house. Tears were still running down her face. She wasn't sure if she could do this. All logic had been thrown out the window and the only concern she had was finding her beloved boys._

_The second SUV pulled up, David and Spencer jumping out to join the three members of their team out the front of the house._

"_She went in. We need to go in after her," Hotch said quickly._

"_Are Will and Henry?...Are they?...," Spencer asked, unable to ask what he wanted to know. Derek looked solemnly at the godfather of the little angel and nodded. Spencer's brow furrowed, the way it always did when he didn't want to cry. Swallowing back the emotion, promising himself a cry of grief later, he followed the team through the house, focused on finding Steven Gregory and keeping JJ from harm._

_Emily and Derek split in the hallway. Derek headed for the end of the hallway where Henry's room and the bathroom were located. Emily went towards the master bedroom. Gun held in front of her, she noticed that the door was already wide open, whereas all the other doors in the house were closed. Stepping past the doorframe of the bedroom, she immediately swung around to clear the main part of the room._

_The image before her made her lower her gun._

_Blood covered the walls on the far side of the room, streaked the thin white curtains that were gently moving in the breeze coming through the open window. Will's body was lying in the corner. The Southerner's eyes were closed, and he was covered in blood._

_But what Emily took in next to him broke her heart._

_JJ was sitting against the wall, her body rigid, her eyes wide and unblinking as a few tears leaked out. In her arms, held close to her chest, was Henry. Her gun was lying on the floor beside her. Emily could tell from the neutral expression on the angelic little boy's face that he was gone._

"_JJ," she said softly, kneeling down in front of her friend, eyes full of sympathy as she took in the broken expression on the blonde's face._

_She sat with the broken blonde for what felt like hours, fighting back tears but eventually letting them fall as she watched JJ cradle the broken body of her tiny son. The way JJ cried that day was something that Emily knew she would never forget. They were tears of pure devastation, cries of pain and heartbreak, the sobs of someone who was never going to heal._

_Eventually, they had to leave to let the forensics and the coroners do their job. Emily hated herself for having to tear JJ away from her family...but she knew she had to._

_"JJ...you need to let him go"_

_JJ took a deep breath, her lips parting just a little before she spoke. "No...I won't...I can't"_

"_JJ...you need to leave him. He's gone. There's nothing you can do," Emily said gently. JJ's eyes filled with tears._

"_I should've protected him...I'm his mother...he thought I would keep him safe," JJ whispered, slowly raising her eyes to meet Emily's dark brown orbs._

"_Henry knew that you loved him. So did Will. They both died knowing that you loved them, JJ, that was all you could do," Emily coaxed gently. JJ looked down at her son's face. He could've been sleeping._

_Leaning down, she pressed a soft kiss to his forehead, tears slipping out and pooling on the young boy's pale skin. "I'll never forget you...my baby boy"_

Emily recalled how JJ had been soaked with her precious son's blood, how as soon as they were outside, she had fallen to her knees and cried. Emily remembered seeing Spencer crying in the front hallway as CSIs moved in and out of the house. But she would never forget the image of the broken blonde who had cried for hours while she was curled up on Emily's couch.

That would never leave her.

Pulling herself away from the mirror, Emily opened the bathroom door, striding towards the bullpen again. Grabbing her car keys from the pocket of her jacket, she walked up to Aaron Hotchner's office. With a sharp rap on the door, she opened it and stepped inside.

"I'm taking an hour off. I'm going to check on JJ," she announced.

"Have you heard from her recently?"

"Not for a week. I'm starting to worry about her," Emily replied. Hotch nodded, setting his pen down.

"Go. Text me when you get there, tell me how she is," he instructed. Emily nodded in agreement, before turning and heading back through the bullpen to the elevator.

* * *

The entire distance to JJ's house, Emily worried about what she was going to find. JJ definitely wouldn't be the same. Would she even acknowledge her brunette friend? Would she have taken her own life?

At that thought, Emily shook her head. No. JJ was stronger than that. So much stronger.

Pulling into the driveway at JJ's new address, she slowly got out of her car, her hand resting reassuringly on her gun holster. With hesitant steps, she approached the front door, the only sound being her heels on the concrete path. Reaching out, she closed her hand around the handle on the front door and turned it, finding it unlocked.

"JJ?" she called out as she stepped inside the house. "JJ, its Emily"

The darkness and silence of the house unnerved Emily. Keeping one hand on her gun, she moved slowly and quietly though the small house. It was tidier than she expected; not that JJ was a messy person, but people who suffered from the same degree of loss...tidying up usually wasn't even on their list of priorities.

Pushing open the closest door, she found herself in the master bedroom. She quickly looked around. JJ wasn't in the room, but it looked like she had been recently. The covers on the bed were rumpled, and the drawers were slightly open, one with the sleeve of a shirt hanging out. It was then that something caught her eye.

The gun safe on the bedside table was open, and there was no gun inside.

Swivelling around, Emily swung open the bathroom door...and heaved a sigh of relief when she found JJ sitting against the bathroom wall. But she was just as quickly unnerved to see that the missing gun was in JJ's hand, and there were some pill bottles (thankfully, all unopened) sitting in front of her on the floor.

"JJ," she said softly, kneeling down on the tiles beside the blonde.

"I thought about it," JJ said softly, not looking at Emily. "I was...this close to...pulling the trigger, or swallowing some pills"

Emily shifted a little closer, watching JJ with concern.

"But I couldn't do it. I so badly wanted to...but I just couldn't do it," JJ said, her voice cracking as tears ran down her cheeks. Turning to look at Emily, she swallowed thickly. "Does that make me a coward?"

Emily closed the gap between them, prying the gun free of JJ's hand and setting it down beside her. Pulling JJ into her embrace, she held the blonde close. "No, JJ, it makes you strong. You were strong enough to know that deep down, you didn't really want to end your life"

"My life is nothing but a string of misery. I just want all of that to be over"

"And it will," Emily said softly. "You're stronger than all of it, JJ. A coward would take their life instead of facing their problems. You're strong enough to know that suicide's not the answer. You'll get past it all"

"I don't know how much longer I can do this," JJ mumbled, resting her head on Emily's shoulder. Emily ran her hand gently up and down JJ's arm in a comforting action. She wasn't sure of how much longer any of them could do it.


End file.
